


More Than Okay

by OnlyFoxMulder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, Episode: s11e09 Nothing Lasts Forever, F/M, MSR, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29943885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyFoxMulder/pseuds/OnlyFoxMulder
Summary: Scully’s fall down the trash shoot results in some unexpected news. A.K.A an AU version of Nothing Lasts Forever.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	More Than Okay

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I’ve written in present tense, so I apologize for any mistakes. I actually liked it better than past tense, so I may experiment with it again in the future.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this short piece of mind candy. I can’t say much more without spoiling it; just know I love envisioning scenarios like this one. We deserve/d it.

“Mulder!”

Her call for help is weak, barely audible through the wall, and when he finally moves enough of the trash to open the door, Scully is struggling against a decades worth of garbage. She appears to be fine upon first glance, no visible cuts or scrapes, only a slightly dazed look that strikes him as normal for the situation at hand. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, offering her a hand. She stands slowly, on shaky legs, and promptly wobbles on her feet. “Whoa there, Scully. Did you hit your head?”

“I’m fine,” she answers with the shake of her head. The subtle contraction in her body language alerts him to her white lie: she is  _ not _ fine. In fact, she’s dizzy and using his shoulder to keep herself from collapsing to the floor in a heap. “I’m… fine,” she repeats and loses her footing. If he weren’t there to wrap an arm around her waist, she would have tumbled. 

Acting quickly, he sets her down on the floor and props her up against the wall. He’s not a doctor, but he checks her pupils anyway and notes their normal size, then checks her scalp with careful fingers as he dials 911 with his other hand. There’s a small egg-shaped bump at her crown and Scully flinches when he brushes against the spot. “Shhh, I’m sorry,” he says and kisses her temple before he can stop himself. 

The 911 dispatcher tells him paramedics are en route, so he hangs up and tries to decide whether he should carry her out of the building or stay and wait for the professionals. She doesn’t seem to have any additional trauma, just a bump on her head, but he doesn’t want to risk any further injuries by moving her on his own. Not until he knows how far she fell and if any obstructions broke her fall before the piles of trash bags.

“Does your back hurt?” 

She shakes her head in answer. 

“Arms? Legs?” 

Another shake. 

“Can you feel your extremities? Wiggle your toes?”

A nod this time.

“Was there anything to hit on your way down?”

Back to a shake. 

Okay, good. From his minimal medical knowledge, she should be okay. Maybe a little winded, but okay. She is lucid enough to answer basic questions, she isn’t in pain, but the paramedics would make the final determination. 

“Mulder, I’m fine,” she whines and places her palms on the filth and grime to hoist herself up, using the wall for support. “Wanna get out of here now. It smells awful.”

Yeah, she is probably going to spend half the evening scrubbing dirt and garbage juice from her skin and clothes. This basement hasn’t seen a broom or a mop in at least ten years and it certainly smelt like a dump. He’s about to make a wisecrack comment about her stinky fall, but her eyelids begin to flutter closed and she wavers to the side. 

“Oh no, Scully. You have to stay awake, just a little while longer,” he warns, “Are you dizzy? Lightheaded?”

She nods.

Voices calling for an Agent Mulder float down the hallway, the sound music to his ears. The faster he knows she’s okay, the better. 

The paramedics ask the same questions, poke and prod the same planes of her face and scalp he gingerly examined a few minutes prior to their arrival. They check her blood pressure (it’s high), listen to her heartbeat (it’s raised), and inspect for superficial injuries (none that they can find, other than her head). He remains by her side, shushing her when she wants to complain about being fine and even as she asks the younger female to leave her alone. 

Mulder knows she’s delirious, simply because of her bedside manner. Her movements are slow, her words harsh and very different from the normal Scully. Even when she’s hurt. 

They conclude their initial examination and load her up into an ambulance with Mulder holding her hand in his grasp. He’s not leaving her. This marks the second trip to the hospital in the four months they’ve been back in the office together and he would not leave her side. Not this time. 

As the doors shut, she’s speaking again, murmuring  _ ‘Baby, baby, Mulder, have them… baby, Mulder,’  _ over and over again. Baby? Is she calling him baby? She only uses that particular pet name on very rare occasions and only in the privacy of their own bedroom… or hotel room, as it were, and certainly not in the presence of others. 

Her heart monitor starts to beep erratically as she struggles with the words she so clearly wishes to speak. “Shh, Scully, listen to my voice and try to focus. What’s wrong?”

The crystal blue of her eyes reveal themselves and he sees the fear in them now, tears glistening her long lashes. Her earlier defiance, seemingly a figment of his imagination, is gone. “I’m pregnant, Mulder. Please, you have to make sure the baby’s okay. We can’t lose her, Mulder. Please, please…” she pleads, surprisingly strong and clear through her fog. 

Wait a minute.  _ Pregnant?  _ No, that isn’t possible. Not anymore. Yet, her words were spoken with such clarity and conviction. She isn’t the kind of person to lie about something so momentous, especially after she alluded to her desire for a second child. It has to be true. But how? And why tell him now?

“Scully?” he breathes, feeling his own heart skip a couple beats in his chest. “Scully, are you sure?”

Her head lolls to the side and he takes the opportunity to brush a loose strand of hair from her cheek. Then she nods once more, the motion aggravating her injury. The pothole riddled road isn’t helping matters much either but he keeps quiet and focuses his attention on Scully and only Scully.

Even when Adrienne, the young paramedic with platinum blonde hair and a hardened expression, rummages through equipment and finds one of the small portable ultrasound machines, his eyes never leave Scully’s. Hers drift closed and the blonde says she doesn’t appear to have suffered a concussion, so it’s okay to rest. Mulder doesn’t press the issue, though he wishes to ask the hundreds of questions dancing in his mind. 

Christ,  _ a baby. _ A girl? She’d said they wouldn’t lose  _ her _ , not it. Did she know the gender already? No, that isn’t possible either. It’s too soon. He thinks back to the previous weekend, the one where Scully finally moved her things back into their small cottage, and how much time was spent christening each and every room of the home they used to share. They practically spent the entire two days naked, wrapped in each other, and he can’t recall seeing or feeling the difference in her body. She couldn’t be far enough along to learn the gender yet, he thinks. 

Adrienne is suddenly in front of him, blinking with concern. “Sir, are you alright? Sir?”

He clears his throat and tightens his hold on Scully’s hand. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly and adds, “What about the baby?”

The woman smiles and returns to her post. “I thought we were gonna need another IV for a second there.” 

It feels strangely intrusive to sit by and watch as Adrienne moves the wand over Scully’s bare stomach in search of the possible life within. Then, he hears the whooshing sound he recalls so vividly, as if he is transported back in time, seventeen years in the past. He joined her on two ultrasound appointments when she was pregnant with William, after his miraculous return. The experience filled him with a sort of wonder he never expected to feel and assumed he would never feel again. 

Boy was his younger self wrong.

Adrienne is pointing towards a small blob on screen but he can’t decipher what he’s being shown. It reminds him of an abstract painting: obscure and out of focus to outsiders, but obvious to the painter. Then again, isn’t he technically one half of the whole painter? 

“The baby’s okay?” he implores as they near the emergency room. The ride to the hospital passed in a total blur, his mind is unable to comprehend anything other than Scully. 

“Looks that way, Sir,” she confirms confidently, offering him a brief smile as consolation. “She’s incredibly lucky all that garbage padded her fall because it could’ve been a whole lot worse. They’ll run a few standard tests inside and have an ultrasound tech verify, but it all looks good.”

“Blood pressure,” he states and realizes how silly he sounds. To be fair, he’s still reeling from life-altering news and worried sick about the woman he loves; his mind is bound to miss a few things. “I-I hear high blood pressure is dangerous during pregnancy… Hers was high wasn’t it?”

She doubles over her notes and retakes Scully’s blood pressure. “It’s elevated, yes, but not overly so. She’s calmed since the last reading and it’s steadily decreased. I don’t believe you have anything to worry about in that regard. She was showing signs of dehydration, which could have contributed to the high reading. The IV is helping.”

He nods along, still not entirely convinced. Until Scully is awake and assuring him of her health, he’s going to continue fidgeting and torturing himself with all that can and will go wrong. It’s an irritating habit he can’t shake, like gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe. After a lifetime of disappointment and insurmountable anguish, it isn’t easy to expect the best possible outcome and remain positive. He’s sure she feels the same way. 

They roll Scully inside, her hand limp in his own, and he still won’t leave her. Two hours later, he’s still there, by her hospital bed, stroking hair away from her face. She’s breathing,  _ thank god  _ she’s here, chest rising and falling in slumber. After multiple doctors confirmed what he’d been told and performed a thorough examination of the patient, they wheeled her into a recovery room for the night and disbanded. 

Face down on the cheap plastic table rests a sonogram image. It calls for him, taunts him from across the room. Their teeny tiny son or daughter is sound and healthy, safely nestled inside its mother as she recovers. A miracle.  _ Another  _ miracle, the evidence only a few feet away. 

He kept his eyes closed as the tech more or less echoed the same sentiment as Adrienne, making sure Mulder knew his wife (he didn’t correct her) needs to see her own doctor once they’re home. He said okay, more or less hearing the same from the doctor, and soon he was left alone with his thoughts and has been for about an hour now. 

A baby. In so many months he’s going to have a small human being depending on him, needing him for his or her very survival. That thought is enough to send his nerves into overdrive; he feels like he can barely look after himself some days, memories of darkness at every turn, swallowing him whole and devouring everything in its destructive path. He isn’t going to fall into a black hole again. Back in Scully’s good graces and apparently expecting a child, he’s on the right track. Nothing is going to pull him under.

For one reason or another, he has a million of them, a lump forms in his throat. His resolve weakens and he loses his battle with the tears welling in his eyes. They spill down his cheeks and in an attempt to disguise it, he leans forward and rests his head against the starchy sheet covering her bed. Unlike the last time he held an emotional bedside vigil, he takes her hand and kisses the palm, over and over again. 

He stays, waits for some sign telling him what to do. He’s happy, no, actually, he’s far beyond happy. He can’t help but feel overjoyed. They’re having a baby.  _ A baby! _ Shit, he wants to scream it from the rooftops or some other nonsensical cliché. The tears aren’t born out of sorrow, but out of love, so much of it his heart threatens to burst. Luckily they’re in a hospital.

Of course, he’s terrified. Too many variables threaten their very lives on any given day and their son is still missing. To say he feels guilty is the understatement of the century. How is he supposed to juggle the love for a new baby when they were forced to give up his first? 

As if she senses his internal strife, Scully stirs and murmurs his name. Her voice is low and scratchy when she speaks. Relief floods through him at the sound of her whisper. This has happened too many times, he thinks to himself sadly. The next time they’re in the hospital, he wants them to be cradling a healthy newborn. No pain, no suffering, no injuries; he prays for a safe and normal birth and will stop at nothing to ensure their protection.

“Hey,” he says, his own voice hoarse. “How do you feel?”

She swallows a couple times and he quickly finds the pitcher of water left by the nurse and pours her a glass of ice water with a straw. When she’s finished, he offers a small smile and continues to hold her hand, stroking her knuckles with his thumb. She squeezes back.

“Groggy, but okay,” she responds and stretches her legs. “My head is pounding though.” It takes her a minute to adjust to her surroundings but when her free hand flies to her stomach, eyes wide and alert, he knows she’s remembering how she ended up in a hospital bed. “The baby,” she blurts, struggling to sit up. “Mulder, please tell me the baby’s okay.”

Despite himself, he smiles. “She’s just fine, Scully. Two different doctors reviewed the tests, performed an ultrasound. Against all odds, the baby is okay.”

She sighs and searches for the button to lift herself into a seated position. He finds it for her and raises the bed slightly, then falls silent. So many questions are waiting on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t want to overwhelm her with them yet. 

“I wanted to tell you,” she begins after some quiet reflection. “It’s been torture, Mulder. Between the fiasco in Connecticut and being called to New York shortly after, I couldn’t find the right time to tell you. I’m sorry, Mulder, so, so sorry.”

He shakes his head in disbelief and leans in close. “You have nothing to apologize for, Scully.”

“Yes I do,” she admits and he watches as a couple stray tears trail down her pale cheeks. “We could have lost the baby before you even knew it existed. I wouldn’t have been able to live with that burden, Mulder. It would’ve eaten me alive.”

Swiping away her falling tears, he ponders what to say next. Obviously, he understands the struggle to find the perfect time to do anything in this uncertain world. It took them seven years to admit they loved each other and another eighteen years to find a common language again. He can’t fault her for waiting, he would have done the same thing in her shoes.

“But we didn’t lose the baby,” he states once more, in awe of the way it feels to say those words. She’s pregnant; there’s a small life growing inside her right now and he had a small part in creating it. Unbelievable. “Both of us have to try and focus on what  _ did _ happen, as opposed to what could’ve happened. It’s hard—I know because I did the same thing when I saw the ultrasound—but we have to try.”

Her eyes soften a little and she wipes away the remaining moisture from her cheeks. They look at each other then, just looking, allowing the news to fully digest. Then, the main question on his mind begs to be answered. 

“How long have you known?”

“Less than a week,” she tells him, takes her hand away from his hold and cups his cheek. It’s a familiar gesture, one they use to center themselves and bring each other back from the brink. Just the two of them versus the universe. “The nausea started the day after our sushi date; at first, I thought it was the sushi that upset my stomach, but it returned the following day.”

“I assume you’ve seen a doctor?” 

She confirms, explaining the morning before their trip to Connecticut and how she snuck out of bed and drove to the nearest pharmacy; how she bought four different pregnancy tests and took them in the downstairs bathroom, all while he was fast asleep, curled around a pillow he thought was Scully; and how each test revealed a tiny pink or blue plus sign. 

Looking back, he remembers noticing her unusually puffy and red eyes that morning. He also remembers her refusing breakfast and having to go to the bathroom several times during their drive. It all fits together to form the entire puzzle in hindsight. He wishes he could time travel to that very day and be there for her instead of immersed in a case file.

“I called a friend at Our Lady of Sorrows from the bathroom,” she continues. “She owed me a favor and agreed to see me right away. That’s why I ran out on our breakfast—well that, and I couldn’t keep food down—I had to know definitively before we left.”

“And?” he encourages her to finish.

“And, she confirmed what the home tests proved: I was three months into pregnancy in my fifties, unusual but not uncommon, high risk but not impossible.” She pauses run a finger across his lips. “It’s going to be a long and bumpy road, Mulder. Are you ready to take the chance and have this baby with me?”

His hand covers her smaller one against his cheek. There’s no question, he’s here for the long haul. “God, yes,” he beams and gives into his basic instincts, kissing her once on the lips before pulling away to find her smiling through tears. “We’ve tackled so much in our time together, Scully. This is nothin’ we can’t handle and think of the reward we’ll receive for our hard work.”

“A baby,” she says with the same awe he feels and brings their hands down from his face to her belly. 

“Yeah.” 

They’re both grinning like dorks. He takes his eyes off Scully for a minute to contemplate their combined hands. It doesn’t appear that much had changed, her stomach is flat and toned as always. Inconspicuous. The size of a walnut, apparently. His smile grows. 

“You said ‘she.’

“Hm?” He’s unable to take his focus off her midsection. 

“Earlier, when I first woke up; you said ‘she’s just fine’ when I asked if the baby was okay,” she reminds him, openly crying now. They’re crying together and for once, it’s not because of sadness. “Do you want a girl?”

Honestly, he’s never given the topic of gender much thought in the past. All he wants is a healthy child and mother by the end of this pregnancy. Nothing more and nothing less. He tells her so.

“Besides, I think you made that determination yourself, Scully. You told me that we can’t lose her in the ambulance.”

She shrugs. “I guess I don’t remember,” she admits with a shy smile. “How long till we can get out of here?”

“The doctor said you’ll be free to go in the morning,” he informs happily, returning her smile with a broad one of his own. “And don’t try to finagle a way out of here until then. I want to be sure you’re okay; you’ve got quite the bump on your head.”

They fall silent again, listening to faraway footsteps and the steady beep of her heartbeat. He casts a glance out the window and is taken aback by the beautiful view of New York in the distant horizon. How a trained investigator misses something so beautiful is beyond comprehension. He guesses his mind was too preoccupied with Scully and keeping a watchful eye on her to notice the clear sky and glittering lights. 

How many people in such a vast and diverse city were experiencing this kind of total euphoria? Probably many, but he can’t help but feel like the luckiest son of a bitch on planet earth. 

“Are we really doing this, Scully?” he asks, eyes still observing the city that never sleeps for another moment before turning back to her, kissing her once more. “We’re really gonna be parents again?”

She sniffles and offers a watery smile, the largest one he’s seen on her face in a long while. “I think we are, Mulder.”

Additional roadblocks lay ahead for the both of them, but for the first time in years he truly feels as if this was destined to happen. The hills and valleys climbed during their twenty-five year partnership prepared them for this inevitable outcome. The universe couldn’t have chosen a better duo to overcome the challenges ahead. They would be okay, he knows it for certain. 

More than okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know where this story came from. I finished rewatching the series for the umpteenth time and wanted to write another pregnancy reveal AU. I’ve already written a pregnancy reveal using NLF as a vehicle, but I can’t picture Scully finding out at any point before then, so I used it again. For an episode I don’t like, I sure keep coming up story ideas centered around it.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading! I have 4 chapters written for another story I’ve been working on and plan to start posting it once I finish half the story, so one more to go.


End file.
